This archive contains my review of every song to make the top ten since the page was started in October of 2004 through 2005. Songs are arranged alphabetically by artist and then in order by date. The date under each review marks it's first appearence in the top ten, followed (in red) by it's peak position. The row of pictures above is the current top ten.

A-C     D-F     G-M     N-Z

2008    2007    2006    2004-2005    1966

 

the year that was

What do you say about a pop year in which the nearest thing to a controversial record was a piece of loose satiric comedy that just about everyone in the critical establishment, except me, hated, and that everyone else bought hand over fist? For the furor it stirred up alone, I’m tempted to make “My Humps” my personal record of the year. Anything that drives the ultra-hip or the super-serious into such frenzies deserves an accolade. Of greater importance, “My Humps” was a true “pop” hit, driven onto the charts not by the record labels and their promotion arms (who distribute cash with greater frequency than they do records), but by word of mouth and download sales, quickly driving the “official” Black Eyed Peas single, “Don’t Lie”, off the charts. Hate it or love it, as 50 Cent says, but “My Humps” is a sign that popular music can still be driven by the tastes and desires of the people.

Downloading isn’t the force it will become over the next year or two, but it’s already shaping the scene in ways that could have been easily forecast if anyone had taken the time to bother. It’s only a matter of time before we get hit records that will only be available by download, and will arrive from far outside the regular music pipeline (I personally live for the day when someone issues a string of download only singles without officially bothering to make an album out of them until, voila! there it is). Any success of that kind will quickly be co-opted and imitated by the major labels, of course, but by then the landscape of the market will have been forever changed, lifting us, we can only hope, out of the current doldrums in which the record industry, and pop music as a whole, currently finds itself.

I’ve been pointing this out for a while now, but it’s worth repeating: the last few years have been the slowest and thinnest, in terms of the number of records that have made the charts and especially the number that have reached the top ten, since the early 1950s. What’s worse, the 56 records that did manage to get into the top ten this year represent the work of only 34 different artists (33 if you count The Games’ two hits as being 50 Cent records, and how can you not?). Between them, 50 Cent, Mariah Carey, and Kelly Clarkson accounted for over 20% of the top ten records this year. Compare that to a banner year like 1966, when 84 artists put 129 different songs in the top ten, or even a notoriously bad year like 1975, when there were 35 number ones alone. This year there were eight.

Whether this is the result of audience indifference is a matter that could be debated, I suppose, though it seems like the obvious answer, and audience indifference is almost always the result of boring product. If you read the trades, or just the newspapers, they’ll tell you that the big news this year was Mariah Carey’s comeback, or maybe the Rise of the Clones of Usher. What they’ll avoid is the real news: that the pop scene was so lame that Carey, who’s been around for fifteen years now, was able to make a comeback without changing her style or approach in the slightest. When you’re floating in a stagnant pool, all you need to do to make a comeback is bob up a little higher than the others.

Record sales, as always, are down, and I don’t think downloading can be blamed for all, or even a small part of it. Musically, there was virtually nothing that was new or worthy of sustained attention this year. Instead, it was a year of gimmicks: whistles and whispers, slot machines and screams, and other assorted sounds packed into samplers and sequencers like so many shiny baubles. There was also a lot of heavy breathing--every third record seemed to have a reference to “the backdoor” or “riding it like a rodeo”. Orgasms received particular attention: men were constantly promising to deliver them, and women, like Amerie on “1 Thing”, seemed to be constantly having them.

The most graphic stuff, of course, like David Banner’s “Play”, was edited for radio, but it was easy enough for anyone to download the “explicit version”, not to mention the ringtone, of whatever piece of aural pornography struck their fancy, and then, courtesy of their cell phones, broadcast it all over the neighborhood. At least in a few cases, such as 50 Cents “Candyshop” and “Just a Lil’ Bit”, it sounded like good sex. Most of the rest was the usual sex as power, either as conquest or as showing off, and about as erotic as an instructional film I once saw on how to artificially inseminate rats.

And with that cheerful image to see the year off, I’ll wish you all a happy, and more musical, New Year.

 

Locked Up (featuring Styles P.)
Is this what the Chi-Lites would have sounded like if they’d been gangstas? Over a simple, atmospheric piano riff, Akon laments his life of crime and jail time in a voice so sweet and unthreatening you wonder how any cop could stoop so low as to give the suffering soul even a parking ticket. Poor guy, his baby won’t answer the phone or send him magazines. “Where’s my lawyer?” he asks plaintively.
10/13/04 #8

Lonely
There are so many reasons to hate this record, not just for what it is but for what it implies about the pop audience and what it portends for the future, it’s difficult to know where to start. What it is: a bath of self-pity. First, Akon, he of the lovely, hurt, throb in his throat Caribbean tenor lilt, was “Locked Up”. Now he’s “Lonely”. What’s next, “Leprous”? You can almost hear him, can’t you? “Baby my toes fell off. Baby my nose fell off.” What it implies about the pop audience: that they’re near idiots with an unquenchable thirst for novelty, whatever its actual merits. This is always partly true, but it’s insulting to be presented with such a gratuitous example. What it portends: mounds and mounds of unbelievable crap. Don’t blame Kanye West; when he raises samples to seemingly helium-induced pitches, he picks soul classics, like Aretha’s version of “Young, Gifted, and Black”, and uses them to deepen the texture and the meaning of his songs. Akon picks Bobby Vinton, for God’s sake, puts it right at the center of the arrangement so you can't evade or ignore the damn thing, and by raising the pitch actually increases the original's level of sentimentality. I take this as further proof that we’re living through the early 1950’s all over again. “Mr. Lonely” was a throwback when Vinton recorded it in the 60s, and repitched like this it may as well be Patti Page or Teresa Brewer or the Chordettes. Can we all look forward to Snoop sampling ‘How Much Is That Doggie In the Window?”
4/8/05 #4

 

1 thing
The tricky thing about orgasms, which is what this record essentially is, is that sometimes they sound like something’s wrong. The first time I heard this I thought the guy Amerie sings to had done something bad to her, and that the jumping, jagged funk drum sample was intended as anger. Truth is, whatever he did must have been really good, because the record doesn’t even build to its climax, it just starts right in--before Mr. 1 Thing even has a chance to answer Amerie’s knock on his door--and never stops. It’s a good thing programmers, and the FCC, don’t pay any attention to music, as opposed to lyrics, or this would never have gotten on the radio.
4/13/05 #9

 

play
How does that old proverb go--if you don’t have anything interesting to say, whisper? Following the Ying Yang Twins, this goes a little further (or should that be deeper?) into the whispered pornography trend—the LP version is pure dirt, as graphic as anybody could possibly want or need. Plus all the usual muffled thudding beats, sirens, heavy breathing, and squeaky noises. Result: the musical equivalent of a Hummer, and probably created for exactly the same reason.
9/23/05 #7

 

check on it (featuring Slim Thug)
Though it may not be worth the trouble, I have a real problem with this record. It isn’t the music, which is bouncy and has a great flow to it; and it isn’t exactly the lyrics, though the hook strikes me as underwritten: every time Beyonce says “check on it”, the flow breaks a little—couldn’t they have come up with a few more words? No, what really bothers me is the philosophy of this record, which might best be summed up as: “if you want to score a rich rapper and be loaded down with bling, you need to be what he expects you to be.” In other words, if you want to win your man, you need to turn yourself into his fantasy. This fits in perfectly with the current culture of rap, which has moved from the streets into the clubs, where rappers prove their superiority not with guns (though they’re all still packing), but with bling, with grillz, with expensive liquor and quality weed, and by their success with women. For the women this is actually a step up: no longer bitches and hoes (who couldn’t get into a club like the VIP), they are now objects of admiration and controlled lust (as opposed to physical dominance and rape), and therefore have a bit more power than they did before. But it’s not exactly a pedestal they’ve been put on—more like a runway or a showroom floor—they’re still commodities to these guys; still representations of a man’s superiority; trophies. Standing in for his brothers, Slim Thug repeats all the old clichés about rappers in clubs, especially the one about not dancing. He just sits there and watches, checking out the merchandise like a John in a high-class bordello, until he spots the girl he wants. For all intents and purposes, Beyonce may as well be the stripper in “Laffy Taffy.” I still await the day when a rapper, male or female, talks about a member of the opposite sex as if they were just another, equal, human being. I won’t hold my breath.
12/23/05 #1

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inside your heaven
I could be rude and say that it must take some kind of talent to be outclassed by the likes of Carrie Underwood, but what would be the point? Bice shows even less personality than Carrie, not to mention his own obvious American idols: Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, and Michael Bolton. And dressing up like Jesus isn't going to help him at all.
7/1/05 #2

 

don't phunk with my heart
Like Gwen Stefani’s “Rich Girl”, this is a multi-colored mélange at the tongue-in-cheek edge of multi-culturalism, but, unlike Stefani’s record, it’s a wonderful anomaly as well. In an era of individual hip-hoppers (with occasional guest stars to increase salability) rapping to beats crafted by individual producers (usually working on their own without a particular artist in mind), here we have not only a real group, but a rap group, at that. Hearkening back to the glory days of Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, being a group matters on this record, and is, musically at least, part of what it’s about. It’s made up as much of layers of personality as it is of sound. Lots of beatmasters use Bollywood soundtrack samples, for instance, but how many would think to shout “Yahoo!” and gallop around the corral while they were doing it, or pepper it with multiple sonic puns the way these guys and gal do? “Rich Girl” is a great mix of sources, but it doesn’t come anywhere near the depth of reference or personality of this record. “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” may, in fact, be a little too busy, and a little too respectful of its influences, to be truly great. But what a breath of fresh air it is.
5/20/05 #3

my humps
Everybody gets the joke, but I wonder how many people realize how truly satirical this record is. The main target appears to be Ciara, whose “Goodies” delivered almost exactly the same “look but don’t touch” message, the difference being that Ciara presents herself as a good girl, while the woman here is a hilarious portrait of a gold digging bitch. The fact that it’s sung by a woman leavens whatever misogynism might be hinted at, and the man, wisely, makes no real comment other then mentioning that he’s met other women who are more than willing to mix his milk with their cocoa puffs. Then he throws his hands up in the air in the “so real/surreal” coda, as if saying that some things, like this woman, just can’t be explained.
9/16/05 #3

 

let me hold you (featuring Omarion)
Except for a bizarre revival of “The Name Game”—from a guy who’s probably never even heard of Lola Falana—this is pretty ordinary stuff. I can’t imagine he gets very far with this line, either. First of all, when you’re romancing a girl, you don’t promise to “hold her down,” as if that meant the same thing as holding her tight. Second, if you really loved this girl, you wouldn’t have to “work at it like a crack addict in rehab.” All that’s going to do is make her wonder what particularly nasty habit you need to kick in order to stay true. Finally, if you’re going to keep her, you’re going have to do better than a ride with a phone and a TV in the back. Every soccer mom in the suburbs has that.
7/22/05 #4

like you (featuring Ciara)
It's unfair of me to lay this at the feet of Bow Wow, but this record begs the question, and it has to be asked: Do rappers really matter anymore? There are currently four records with raps on them in the top ten, and on none of them is the rap of central importance to the appeal of the record (on "Don't Cha" it's actually a detriment). Bow Wow's two singles are both selling on the strength of the featured guest vocalists, with Omarion's soul crooning on "Let Me Hold You", and Ciara's autoerotic vocals on this record (for the first time, she seems willing to share her goodies). Bow Wow's raps are so slick and so clichéd you barely notice them, not that you need to. The raps are expected, I suppose, and somehow considered necessary, but these records, like most pop through the ages, are selling on hooks and emotional atmosphere and gimmicks (here it's a high speed chorus that rides up and down the scale like a roller coaster--didn't Gilbert and Sullivan do that already?). If the majority of rappers had anything to say things might be different, but that's probably too much to expect from Bow Wow.
8/26/05 #3

 

run it! (featuring Juelz Santana)
In the midst of Brown’s skillful but vapid Michael Jackson impersonation (the background sounds like a muzak version of Dangerous), Juelz Santana makes direct reference to “Drop It Like It’s Hot”, “The Whisper Song”, “Switch”, and, oddly, The Waitresses “I Know What Boys Like”, which was released about a decade before Brown was born. Santana’s like a salesman slipping in references to superior rival products to create the subliminal impression that what he’s trying to sell you isn’t a piece of crap. But it is.
10/14/05 #1

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we belong together
Since this sounds only a little funkier than Carey’s output from back in the days when she was in the icy grip of ex-husband/manager and head of Sony Music Tommy Mottola (he of the cheap grass and wine, now married to and managing Latin star Thalia), I can only assume that her “emancipation” was contractual rather than artistic. She still doesn’t know how to relax when she sings, throwing everything she’s got into every note when she should really be throwing a few away, and she’s still picking material that’s sentimental and overwrought. In other words, though Mottola may have controlled her early career and made her a star, it’s not like he had to twist her arm to make her sing that crap--he just channeled and refined her own hideous taste. Now that she has the knowledge and the strength to produce her own crap, she doesn’t need him. Score another point for self-actualization.
5/6/05 #1

shake it off
Much to my surprise, I kind of like this record. Catchy laid-back beats, no forced sentimentality, no stupid raps breaking up the flow, and Carey avoids oversinging and only squeaks a couple of times. Plus, unlike her current number 1 (soon to be superseded by this), she actually does sound emancipated on this track. The lyrics, however, like so many pop records these days, are a little weird. While picking up her Louis Vuitton bag and hitting the road, she compares herself to a Calgon commercial. That’s a metaphor for cleaning up a messy situation, I guess, like washing that man right out of your hair. I know Calgon makes bath products, as well, but whenever I hear the name I think of dishwashing detergent, and washing that man right off of your dishes doesn’t have quite the same intimate romantic ring, does it?

Update (9/30/05): OK, I was wrong; this is unbearable, but I fell for it. In my defense, here’s a little quote from an old Robert Christgau review of an Olivia Newton John album: “At least this woman sounds sexy, says I to meself, but Carola soon set me straight. ‘A geisha,’ she scoffed. ‘She makes her voice smaller than it really is just to please men.’” Carey doesn’t do quite the same thing—her schtick is to make her voice sound like she’s in a constant state of sexual arousal, as if just the thought of you, the man, sends her automatically into orgasm—but the intent is the same: to seduce you into buying her records. I just hope I’ve warned you in time.
8/19/05 #2

don't forget about us
Packed with more vocal tracks than an Enya record, as a display of technical prowess, timbre, and range this holds a certain fascination, but if there’s a song buried under all the octave-leaping pyrotechnics I can’t find it, and I bet Mariah doesn’t care. Even with millions of devoted fans, no one loves Mariah’s voice more than Mariah herself, and for all her autoerotic moaning, her only real lust is for material bland enough to highlight it.
12/9/05 #1

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Goodies (featuring Petey Pablo)
In her best “fuck me” voice, Cialis, oops, I mean Ciara, explains that even though she talks like a nasty girl and does a lot of heavy breathing, she keeps her goodies in a jar and won’t put out for just anybody--or, more specifically, “You won’t get no nookie.” Then she plays with herself for awhile. Petey Pablo’s lame bragging about how hot he is doesn’t get him anywhere. I await an answer record, preferably based on Parliament’s “All Your Goodies Are Gone”.
10/13/04 #1

1, 2 Step (featuring Missy Elliott)
Ladies and Gentlemen! The return of...Cialis! Oh, damn! Ciara! I mean Ciara! All right, I'll stop. But can you blame me? For the first two and a half minutes this record sounds almost exactly like "Goodies", which, for ease of comparison, is still in the top ten. Same B-boy introduction (I know, they don't call them B-boys anymore, but that 's what they are), same vocal rhythms for Ciara's, er, raps, same I'm-gonna-tease-you-til-you-explode message. Until Missy Elliott steps in, eating filet mignon and shaking like jello, you'd be hard pressed to tell the two records apart. Except for the fact that this one, believe it or not, is a cha-cha. One, two, 1-2-step! One, two, 1-2-step! Sam Cooke would be proud.
11/26/04 #2

oh (featuring Ludacris)
After two sound-alikes, here comes...the slow version. Stylish atmosphere, but ultimately kind of dull. Ciara's vocal rhythms never change, and neither does her message: "You can look but you better not touch." No wonder the internet is full of nasty rumors about her gender; in the world of hip-hop, shorties aren't allowed to deny playas the pleasures of their flesh, so she must really be a guy, right?
4/22/05 #2

 

breakaway
This isn’t a country record—Clarkson doesn’t have the necessary twang to her voice—but it comes awfully close. The lyrics deftly let us know she’s from the middle of America by making pointed references to all the wonders on the coast that she wants to see—palm trees, the ocean, 100 story buildings, things like that. And all those references to keeping in touch with her loved ones even as she breaks away are pointed straight at the Midwest and country audience. Call it heartland pop. Someone should tell this American Idol winner, though, that marveling at hundred story buildings and revolving doors makes her sound like a back country simp, and that promising to stay in touch means she isn’t really breaking away, she’s just moving on. Still, I kind of like this record. Clarkson knows how to sing, and I’ve always been a sucker for soaring melodies about personal ambition.

Update (11/25/04): Aside from providing relief from all the heavy breathing and gunfire that make up the rest of the chart, I recently realized how politically incorrect this song is, at least from a red state point of view. A perfectly normal, straight, white, god-fearing heartland girl, in order to have a better life, leaves the wholesome red state she grew up in to live in a sinful blue one, and is very very happy about it. Unless, that is, she's leaving Pennsylvania to go work at Disneyworld (yeah sure). “Out of the darkness and into the sun,“ she sings, and all of us who feel the country is heading in exactly the opposite direction can only cheer her on and wish her well. Who says you can’t find politically meaningful songs on the pop charts?
10/26/04 #6

since u been gone
The obvious reference point for this slice of high class punk pop is Avril Lavigne, but that's giving Clarkson either too much, or maybe not enough, credit. Since what Clarkson usually peddles is heartland pop--country music without the twang--the more obvious reference is to the rocking girl groups of the 80s, the decade where country itself is currently stuck. Except I don't hear Joan Jett or the Bangles or even the Go-Gos when I listen to this record. I hear Kim Wilde. Do you remember Kim Wilde? Neither did I until I heard this. You think anybody will remember Clarkson in 15 or 20 years?
2/4/05 #2

behind these hazel eyes
The first time I heard this I thought it a safe follow-up--a bland knock off in “Since U Been Gone” mold. It’s a little more daring than that, but it’s a disappointment nonetheless. It takes only the slightest retouching to turn pop-punk into pop-metal, and this comes awfully close to power ballad territory. I appreciate Clarkson’s willingness to experiment with different styles, and hope that someday she finds one of her own. In the meantime, though, she needs to stop screeching on the high notes.
5/27/05 #6

because of you
This is overwrought and overdone, but Kelly Clarkson seems to be full of surprises, and this is no exception. On first hearing, I had taken “Because of You” for just another broken relationship ballad with particularly silly lyrics (“I never stray too far from the sidewalk”). Instead, it’s about her parents’ divorce when she was five years old and its emotional repercussions, which makes those childish metaphors both touching and apt. The song is still too sentimental and simplistic (the lyrics were written when she was sixteen), but it’s also a sign that Clarkson takes what she’s doing very seriously, and who would have expected that from an American Idol winner?
10/14/05 #7

 

speed of sound
I’m trying very hard not to allow the fact that this record sounds like some unholy merger of the Moody Blues and Simple Minds to bias me against it. It is possible, after all, that Chris Martin, through his love for his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the birth of their daughter, Apple Blythe Alison Martin (who has my sympathy), believes he’s achieved a higher level of spirituality and connection with the universe. It’s also possible that he’s been smoking an awful lot of dope. When people claiming some sort of mystical vision say that “If you could see it then you’d understand,” it means one of three things: One, they’re too lazy to try and explain it to you; two, they’re so wrapped up in their own concept of “peace of mind” that they’ve become spiritual snobs who don’t think you’re worth the trouble of having it explained to you; or three, they actually have come upon an experience that defies their expressive capabilities, in which case they shouldn’t be writing songs about it, should they? I vote for number three, with number two just around the corner.
4/29/05 #8